


Grizzly

by yeaka



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:27:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25776637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yeaka/pseuds/yeaka
Summary: Ralph escapes with a buddy.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 33





	Grizzly

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don’t own Detroit: Become Human or any of its contents, and I’m not making any money off this.

Technically, Ralph can’t feel the cold, but that doesn’t mean the frost can’t bite him—an internal gage warns him in big red letters that his circuits are perilously close to freezing over. The snow’s piled up in his yellow hair, clinging to his synthetic skin and the raw, exposed plating around his scars—some of it slips through the cracks and melts again his sparking wires. The water isn’t any good for him. He once heard humans were mostly made of water. But Ralph’s not human. Ralph leaves patches of blue thirium in the snow like breadcrumbs on a trail.

The wind screams louder, swooping in, and in a sudden gust, his shawl’s torn off his shoulders—it goes fluttering away in the storm. Ralph cries out, but the cape doesn’t listen. It disappears into the darkness: just one more thing forever gone. Ralph grits his teeth and throws his arm over her eyes, trudging forward anyway. He can’t go back. The humans know of his old house. The humans almost took him. At least there are no humans out in the blizzard. Ralph’s specifically headed for nothing: out into the wilderness, the wild black yonder, where no one else will ever find him. Maybe then he’ll be safe. If he doesn’t shut down first. 

Ralph doesn’t want to shut down. Just a little longer. A little further. He brought his watch with him, but it’s broken, just like he is, and can’t tell him the time. He doesn’t know exactly when he left. Just that it was morning then, and it’s night now—he can’t see anything ahead—except a big, hulking figure suddenly forms amidst the fog, and Ralph’s knees start shaking. He almost collapses. He does stop moving, breathless, unblinking, protocols all suspended and sensors in overdrive—he stares as it gets closer, closer.

A wide maw opens, white teeth glinting through the night, and then beady black eyes. His optical nerves finally find a match for the shape: _a bear_.

If Ralph’s audio box wasn’t so damaged from the weather, he’d scream. He tries. It comes out shrill and hoarse. The bear lumbers forward, coming right at him, and Ralph tries to override his motor functions and make himself _run_.

Except then a cloud clears the stars, and enough light slithers across the bear for Ralph to see the gash torn out of its hide. It has one eye exposed, the silver-blue material painfully raw underneath, circuits and seams crisscrossing it like veins. It’s an android. It’s damaged. _Just like Ralph._ It’s fur is stained blue like Ralph’s artificial skin, and it’s limping like Ralph does, teeth bared like Ralph’s knife. The creature pads close enough to examine Ralph—it shakes its head and lifts its muzzle to sniff him. 

Ralph leans closer to examine it too. Their noses touch. The android polar bear’s is damp and moist and makes Ralph’s wrinkle. The bear whines softly and noses at Ralph’s gouged-open cheek. 

Tentatively, Ralph opens his arms. He reaches out and envelops the bear in a loose embrace, then a tighter one—he presses into its soft fur and hugs it warmly. The bear snorts and nuzzles into him. It occurs to Ralph, slow and steady but then exploding like long-awaited fireworks: this could be _a friend._

When Ralph pulls back, it whines. Ralph grins, because the bear misses his touch already, and Ralph understands, really does—he’s lonely too. But he murmurs, “It’s okay, Ralph’s right here,” and pets under its chin. Then he pushes up to his feet and ambles around the bear’s side. It looks curiously at him as he hikes up onto its broad back, fingers curling through its snow-slick fur. For a moment, the bear is still. 

Then it turns and begins lumbering down a new path, the two of them off for a better life.


End file.
